


Real

by WahlBuilder



Category: Mars: War Logs, The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, twenty headcanons in a trench coat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 15:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17706647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Sometimes, Innocence has low days and nothing helps.





	Real

Noctis reminds Innocence of Tierville.

It shouldn’t, he shouldn’t see similarities: sand was furiously and futilely swept away in Tierville—in Noctis, it is part of the city. The hues, noises, languages, scents, tastes are all different—and yet...

He can’t return, not to the broken bones of his old home, his childhood buried in the ruins.

It has probably been cleared and built up. He wonders what’s become of the shop. Appropriated by the government, most likely.

That boy who was so eager to serve his Guild... He feels like a stranger. Like a dream.

Innocence is filling two notebooks now: one is his journal, for keeping himself sane. Another is a sketchbook that will, in weeks, turn into a book they are preparing with Melvin and Tenacity. Tenacity works with colour, on scenery and creatures; Melvin works in monochrome; Innocence makes portraits. He likes that in Noctis he can meet so many different people, from the colourful merchants themselves to the noble mutants from the Valley, from the stern kindred of Melvin to the strange Auroran Technomancers.

He likes drawing people the most. To try to capture the complexity of a life, of a personality in a portrait. How their eyes change colour under different lighting. The small irregularities, the beautiful asymmetry of a face. The way a slightly raised brow can transform the whole expression. Moles, freckles, the hairline and the way hair grows…

The scars. All those lines that tell a history. History doesn’t make people ugly. It gives them inner beauty. Innocence doesn’t try to pry it out—merely to capture it.

People are beautiful.

Maybe he tries to beg forgiveness of all those dead whom he saw. Those people he killed.

His old journal is in a trunk in his room.

He doesn’t look through it.

Or rather, through those pages filled by his hand.

‘ _Calon bach_. Haven’t been out the whole day.’

He looks at Tenacity, then at the small balcony they are on. ‘Doesn’t this count as out?’

Tenacity strokes his beard, eyes cast up and to the left, as though deep in thought. ‘You make a compelling argument, young man.’

Innocence doesn’t smile.

Tenacity frowns.

He feels bad about that.

‘What is it, lad?’

He pulls his sketchbook close, runs his fingers over the leather binding. ‘Nothing. I’m sorry.’

‘For what? Having a low day?’

‘It feels that there is one never-ending low day, and other things interrupt it, but it returns all the time,’ he murmurs. The grain of the leather binding soothing under his fingers.

Tenacity goes to him, big, familiar. Solid. Very real. ‘May I kiss you?’

Innocence looks away from Tenacity’s eyes. They are almost colourless, but, robbing them of colour, the daylight brings out the red in Tenacity’s hair.

‘No. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise for saying no.’

He wants to. He wants to apologise for feeling low, for being… not enough. Tenacity is the best head-hunter on Mars, and Roy is _Roy_ , and he is just… A murderer.

He is just…

He clasps a hand over his mouth and closes his eyes tight.

‘Innocence. Innocence, you are all right.’ Tenacity’s voice, rough but attempting to be soft, sounds unreal.

He swallows. And swallows again, but the lump in his throat doesn’t go away. ‘Please leave.’

‘Certain?’

‘Yes. Sorry.’

‘It’s all right. I’ll be nearby if you need me. Or Temperance. Or Roy.’ Tenacity squeezes his shoulder before leaving, and that touch, that touch… It’s real. Innocence is certain of that.


End file.
